Laurie Cummings, from School Aycliffe, had led an active and varied life during his working life and since retiring 31 years ago. At the age of 83 Laurie is still an active member of the community and enjoys, among other activities, Sub-Aqua Diving and Athletics.
After retiring from Durham Constabulary in 1994, Laurie moved to Turkey where he became a Sub-Aqua Instructor and Dive Guide with Aegean Pro Dive Centre. At the time, there were no dive plans for any of the dive sites in and around Bodrum. Over a period of 12 months, Laurie and his wife Judy dove and designed drawings for the dive sites which are still used today.
In 2023, and recording a total of 12,713 dives, Mr Cummings retired from Sub-Aqua Diving.
Laurie’s special passion was athletics and the highlight was to become the fastest man in the world, over the age of 80 years old, in 2022.
Laurie has completed 224, 5k park runs throughout the country and has broken 134 course records. He is a member of the North East Masters Amateur Athletics Association holds records in 10,000m, 5,000m, 3,000m, 5k, 1 mile, 400 metres, 200 metres and 100 metre track events, all taking place at the Jarrow Monkton Athletics Stadium.
Every morning Laurie completes a 60 minute training session at Aycliffe Leisure Centre followed by either a 5k road run or a variable speed session on the OakLeaf running tack.
Laurie does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon and we wish him well.